Bangladesh begins preparations as the defending world champions make their long-awaited T20I comeback
England will attempt to keep their white-ball storm running in the first of three T20Is against Bangladesh, to be played in Chattogram on Thursday. England is playing in their first T20I match since winning the world championship.
They are up against Bangladesh, who perform well in ODIs despite recently losing the series to England 2-1 but lag much behind in T20Is. Bangladesh will therefore begin as the underdogs if one takes recent performances and personnel quality into account.
With this in mind, Bangladesh made numerous adjustments to their lineup, adding five players, including newcomer Towhid Hridoy. Rony Talukdar joined after eight years and Shamim Hossain after two.
Shamim’s return was likely based entirely on one strong BPL performance this season, the 51-ball 71 for Rangpur Riders against Fortune Barishal. Talukdar, on the other hand, has consistently performed well in domestic cricket and was the BPL’s second-highest scorer this season.
Rejaur Rahman Raja, a fast bowler, and Tanvir Islam, a left-arm spinner, are also part of the Bangladeshi roster; possibly this is a reward for their efforts in the BPL.
Tanvir, who had 17 wickets in 12 games and a 6.36 economy rate, was the competition’s leading wicket-taker, while Rejaur had 13 wickets in 8 games and an 8.41 economy rate.
With Ben Duckett and Chris Jordan stepping in to add power, England’s T20I squad matches their ODI lineup. They are, however, without Ben Stokes, Harry Brook, Alex Hales and Liam Livingstone, a development that prompted Bangladesh coach Chandika Hathurusingha to call it a “experimental” group.
He quickly added, though, that he will analyze how England restructured their squad for the upcoming T20 World Cup and apply it to his own team’s rebuilding efforts the following year. To put it simply, England is now very excellent.
After eight years, Rony Talukdar returned to international play in 2015 when he competed in a single T20I match against South Africa. In Bangladesh, dropping a player typically spells the end for him, hence it is a rare occurrence.
Talukdar has scored frequently in domestic cricket, and this season’s BPL performance was the highlight of a successful run. He gave the Riders several fast starts, scoring 425 runs in 13 innings with a strike rate of 129.17.
Phil Salt will be looked to by England to get the T20I series off to a strong start. After scoring just 37 runs in two ODIs against Australia in November, he only managed 54 runs in the three games.
He struck an unbeaten 88 in 41 balls against Pakistan in a T20I in Lahore in September of last year, which was his most impressive performance in international cricket to yet. Time to go for some runs.
Bangladesh (probable): 1 Rony Talukdar, 2 Litton Das, 3 Najmul Hossain Shanto, 4 Shakib Al Hasan (capt), 5 Towhid Hridoy, 6 Afif Hossain, 7 Nurul Hasan (wk), 8 Mehidy Hasan Miraz, 9 Taskin Ahmed, 10 Hasan Mahmud, 11 Mustafizur Rahman
England (probable): 1 Phil Salt, 2 Jos Buttler (capt & wk), 3 Dawid Malan, 4 Ben Duckett, 5 Moeen Ali, 6 Sam Curran, 7 Chris Woakes, 8 Chris Jordan, 9 Rehan Ahmed, 10 Adil Rashid, 11 Jofra Archer